Characterization of the interface adhesion of elastic–plastic thin film/rigid substrate systems using a pressurized blister test numerical model

The quality of interface adhesion of an elastic–plastic thin film/rigid substrate system can be characterized by its interface adhesion energy. To estimate the interface adhesion energy, a numerical model for the pressurized blister test has been proposed, which includes three steps: dimensional, forward and reverse analyses. The dimensional analysis is applied to derive a preliminary nondimensional relationship of the interface adhesion energy, and then the forward and reverse analyses are carried out to establish its explicit form and to extract the interface adhesion energy, respectively. The results are in good agreement with experimental measurements, which confirms the effectiveness of the model.